Rev. Lori on How We Learn Compassion
This reflection was originally published in the previous week’s Friday Flyer.
Hello Good People,
This weekend Rev Niki will be reflecting on how we learned compassion. When we pause to think about compassion in our lives, we often find it was not something we discovered alone. Someone showed us—by word, by gesture, by example—what it looks like to care beyond oneself. Perhaps it was a parent who held us close when we were afraid, a teacher who listened with patience, a friend who stood beside us in a moment of struggle. Some of our teachers may not even have known the lesson they were giving, yet their kindness planted seeds in us that continue to grow.
Compassion is a gift handed from one heart to another, a chain of care stretching across generations. To remember those who taught us compassion is to honor the invisible web of love that makes us human. And now it is our turn: to live with the same gentleness, to extend the same understanding, so that someone else may one day say, “It was you who taught me compassion.”
Close your eyes for a moment and think of those who first showed you what compassion means. It may have been a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, a neighbor, or even a stranger. Perhaps it was a gentle word when you felt small, a hand extended when you were lost, or a quiet presence that made you feel safe. These moments, though ordinary at the time, planted something in us. They reminded us that we are never alone, that kindness has the power to carry us through pain, and that to care for another is to give them life itself.
As we remember those who taught us compassion, let us also recognize that we now carry their gift forward. Every time we choose patience over irritation, understanding over judgment, generosity over indifference, we become part of that same lineage of love.
Compassion is not ours to keep—it is ours to share!
Rev Lori Whittemore
(she, her, hers)
Unitarian Universalist Church of Saco Biddeford